Corbett fires 6 over abortion clinic horrors

HARRISBURG - Gov. Corbett announced Tuesday that he has fired a half dozen senior agency employees and ordered changes in the two agencies responsible for oversight of health facilities, following the release of a grisly grand jury report that concluded state officials had ignored years of complaints against Philadelphia abortion doctor now charged with murder.

Three other former agency employees, at least one named in the grand jury investigation, had previously resigned, the governor said. Actions are pending against eight others, spokesman Kevin Harley said.

"This happened because people weren't doing their jobs, plain and simple," Corbett said at a news conference in the Capitol this afternoon. "This doesn't even rise to the level of government running amok. It's government not running at all."

Among those fired was the former acting Department of State secretary Basil Merenda and four top attorneys at the Departments of State and Health.

The individuals had responsibility for the oversight of the West Philadelphia abortion clinic operated by Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who was indicted in the death of a patient and seven newborns were allegedly killed. Nine of Gosnell's employees, including his wife Pearl, also were indicted last month and remain in custody.

The clinic, which only closed after federal drug agents investigating illegal prescription drug sales raided it a year ago, had not been inspected by the state since 1993. The grand jury report detailed filthy conditions in the clinic, untrained staff performing medical procedures and alleged Gosnell killed babies, delivered alive, by severing their spines with scissors.

Department of Health senior counsel Kenneth Brody was faulted in the grand jury report for ignoring complaints against Gosnell, and did not tell the jury about a complaint made against Gosnell in the mid-1990s by Donald Schwarz, a pediatrician who is now Philadelphia's health commissioner. Brody was also part of the circle of top officials who decided not to resume regular clinic inspections in 1999.

Among those fired by Corbett was Christine Dutton, the Department of Health's chief counsel, who defended her agency's failure to respond to patient Karnamaya Mongar's death by telling the grand jury: "People die."

The report alleges that Dutton showed a "blatant refusal to enforce the law." It says that she knew that abortion clinics could have been treated as ambulatory surgical centers, requiring yearly inspections. But she went along with an unwritten policy not to apply that law for political reasons.

Also dismissed was Stacy Mitchell was a deputy secretary in the health department. She was among the leaders, the grand jury found, that gave their blessing for a "do nothing policy on oversight," based on "the "legally faulty excuse that the department lacked the authority to inspect abortion clinics."

The Department of Health is responsible for inspecting health facilities and the Department of State is charged with licensing medical professionals.

Corbett on Tuesday outlined some of the specific changes he will make in each department. They include requiring clinics that perform abortions to be inspected annually, in addition to random, unannounced inspections; requiring a computerized system to track complaints, injuries and investigations into clinics; and requiring that plans of corrections be due within 10 days of an inspector finding a problem at a clinic.

Among the charges against Gosnell is a third-degree-murder count involving the November 2009 abortion in which Mongar, 41, of Virginia, died after being overdosed with anesthetics by unlicensed clinic personnel.

Gosnell is also charged with seven counts of first-degree murder on allegations that he killed newborns by cutting their spinal cords with scissors.

Gosnell, 69, is being held without bail because he has been charged with murder and prosecutors are considering seeking the death penalty. He is scheduled to be arraigned on March 2.